The OpenStack Blog
Everything in & around OpenStack in written words.

Open Mic Spotlight: Steve Martinelli

This post is part of the OpenStack Open Mic series to spotlight the people who have helped make OpenStack successful. Each week, a new contributor will step up to the mic and answer five questions about OpenStack, cloud, careers and what they do for fun. If you’re interested in being featured, please choose five questions from this form and submit!

Steve Martinelli is an OpenStack Active Technical Contributor and a Keystone Core Developer located at the IBM Canada Lab. He primarily focuses on enabling Keystone to better integrate into enterprise environments. Steve was responsible for adding OAuth support to Keystone and is currently adding Federated Identity support to Keystone. In his spare time he also contributes to OpenStackClient as a Core Developer. Though usually swamped with code reviews, his summer Wednesday nights are reserved for playing in the IBM softball league. You can follow him on Twitter @stevebot.

2. How did you learn to code? Are you self-taught or did you lear in college? On-the-job?

I learned to code at school, but I’ve learned how to support, test, and build projects while working. When learning a new language, I avoid using books. I generally use an online tutorial to get a development environment up and running, then have the API handy while I poke around. When getting ramped up on an existing project, like Keystone, I find that going through the code, documentation, and running the test suite with a debugger enabled is enormously helpful.

But, I’ve learned that it’s much more than that. ‘Open source’ software can drive and accelerate an industry. It can ensure many companies agree upon a standard, and move on to the more interesting aspects of what the technology can do.

4. Where is your favorite place to code? In the office, at a local coffee shop, in bed?

It depends on what I’m doing that day. If it’s something that requires a lot of thinking, then I like to work from my desk at home, where it’s relatively free of distractions, and very quiet. If I’m just dabbling in code, or working on something more ‘mechanical’, then I’m good as long as I have a place to sit.

5. What is your favorite example of OpenStack in production (besides yours, of course!)

I really like what the folks at CERN are doing. They are really pushing for Keystone to have Federated Identity support. Plus, who doesn’t like smashing subatomic particles together at nearly the speed of light?!